Mouse Hotel

My fiancé has a live mouse trap called “The Mouse Hotel”. Every winter, mice start to show up in our house as it gets cold outside. He places his trap out at night, and in the morning, there will be a mouse in it which he will then drop off in a field on his way to work. He by no means advocated that mice shouldn’t be killed or anything like that, but in his case, he just says it takes no extra effort and if he doesn’t need to kill them, why would he.

This scenario got me thinking about some of the interactions going on that contribute to his and my ecological identity. Firstly, though our actions are not killing the mouse, we are removing it from one environment and putting it into another. This not only affects the mouse, but if we place enough mice into the new environment it can also influence that ecosystem, both positive or negative.

It also got me thinking about why the mouse is there to begin with. I think the first inclination is to say that I have mice getting into MY home, but really who is in who’s home? The house I am in was built 20 years ago in 1998. Before that, it was probably a wooded or fielded area where mice were abundant. With this consideration, didn’t I (or whomever built the house) move into the home of the mice first? Really, if was human influences that changed the ecosystem of the mice and when they come into my home, they are simply adapting to their environment.

Obviously, I am not going to move out of my house and give it back to the mice, but it is an interesting consideration and part of my identity. How many countless other animals might have been displaced or force to adapt due to new construction of neighborhoods?